The Council of Independent Colleges: Historic Campus Architecture Project

John Greenleaf Whittier Monument

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John Greenleaf Whittier Monument (detail, plaque), Whittier College

John Greenleaf Whittier Monument, Whittier College

Institution Name: Whittier College
Original/Historic Place Name: John Greenleaf Whittier Monument
Location on Campus: on Lower Quad (lawn area at the west side of campus)
Date(s) of Construction:

1911	original construction

Designer:
Type of Place: Landscape site
Style: (Glossary)
Significance: culture, education, history, landscape, religion
Narrative: see below
References: see below

Function:

1911-present (2006)

memorial site

Narrative:
John Greenleaf Whittier was the best-selling versifier of his day. Whittier, a Quaker and staunch Abolitionist in the pre-Civil War period, was instrumental in helping to turn American public opinion against slavery. To give a new town in the "wild West" his name and open a college there in the 1880s implied that this community would be a bulwark against the chaos and mayhem of the old frontier. Although developers deeded Whittier a lot in the new subdivision and installed a rose garden adjacent, the aged poet never visited his namesake city. But the monument built with public subscriptions solicited by the local newspaper bears his likeness and a poem he sent to one of the founders in the early days:

Dear town, for whom the flowers are born,
Stars shine, and happy songbirds sing,
What can my evening give to morn,
My winter to thy spring?

A life not void of pure intent,
With small desert of praise or blame;
The love I felt, the good I meant,
I leave thee with my name.

References:

Arnold, Benjamin F. History of Whittier. Whittier, CA: Western Print Corporation, 1933.

Carter, Coila. "History of Whittier." B. A. thesis, Whittier College, 1908.

Cooper, Charles W. Whittier: Independent College in California. Los Angeles, CA: Ward Ritchie Press, 1967.

Cooper, Charles W. The A. Wardman Story. Whittier, CA: Whittier College, 1961.

Elliott, Charles, Jr. Whittier College: The First Century on the Poet Campus, a Pictorial Remembrance. Redondo Beach, CA: Legends Press, 1986.

Feeler, William Henry. History of Whittier College. M. A. thesis, University of Southern California, 1919.

Harris, Herbert Eugene. The Quaker and the West: The First Sixty Years of Whittier College. [s.l.]: Whittier College, 1948.

Pearce, Phyllis M., Claire G. Radford, and Mary Ann Rummel. Founders and Friends. Whittier, CA: Rio Hondo College Community Services, 1977.